Disney Universe closes creating a pop-rock rendition of the well-known “It’s a Small World.” It’s a Disney tune, but it isn’t delivered in a particularly charming manner, making this performance a fitting end to a Disney-themed game bereft of the idealism that characterizes the worlds it represents. In this action/platforming/puzzle hybrid, you and up to three friends leap and whack your way through dozens of ranges centered on popular Disney films. Six films are represented: Aladdin, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, Pirates of the Caribbean, Monsters, Inc., and WALL-E. But if you actually were expecting the worlds to properly represent the atmosphere of these films, you’ll be saddened to learn that Disney Universe wears its inspiration very lightly. Nor does it make up for its wan portrayal of Disney licenses with consistently enjoyable gameplay. There are morsels of joy here, but they’re sprinkled sparsely throughout and are incapable of overwhelming the pervasive taste of boredom.In Disney Universe, you are a nondescript little gremlin creating a penchant for Disney costumes. Before you enter a world, you choose a look: Donald Duck, Jasmine, Tinkerbell, or some other Disney character. more than time, you unlock an entire stable of costumes, though you must purchase them using coins the game liberally showers you with. Once clad in the outfit of your choice, you and up to three others are swept into the world of your choosing, starting with the Pirates of the Caribbean world. Once there, your goal is to move from a single level to the next by solving puzzles, mashing the buttons on your controller, facing bosses, and rescuing the dressed-up gremlins held captive.
The formula is vaguely reminiscent of the popular Lego film tie-ins, though devoid of the witty storytelling, evocative art style, and basic quality of those games. While you must occasionally exercise your noggin to figure out how to proceed, the game generally shows you what you must do at any given time–though to be fair, you can turn off guidance arrows if you actually desire to include a few more brain cells. Either way, most ranges possess a predictable rhythm: move some objects around, fight off some enemies, possibly participate in an optional minigame, and enter a portal to the next area. And unfortunately none of these projects are much fun, particularly if you actually play on your own. Pushing cannons and ferrying stopwatches around don’t make for compelling entertainment on their personal terms, and your “reward” for accomplishing these projects is, in many cases, the arrival of little black fiends that you beat up on. These fiends are sneaky devils. They pick up and move around puzzle objects you have dropped into place, hop on and ride any animals that might roam the level, and drop spike traps that cause your happy-go-lucky avatar to go stiff being a board and fall to the floor. they are nice touches that make your enemies seem like cunning creatures as opposed to sword fodder. Unfortunately, it isn’t fulfilling to bash them into oblivion. in spite of their efforts, you can cut through most of the little fiends easily. Every so often, however, a bigger beast with an inflated health bar appears, pounding the soil or twirling about like a cyclone to enhance the challenge. But as opposed to adding substance to the combat, such enemies are usually just frustrating.
It’s inordinately difficult to outrun a single of those spinning foes, for example. You are sometimes prompted to carry out a counterattack or avoidance maneuver, but when you’re mashing the attack button, the prompt doesn’t give you enough time to react. There’s little penalty for dying–you just drop some coins and respawn for one more go. The uncomfortable dichotomy of easy and frustrating will possibly turn off Disney fans of all ages, but particularly the younger audience at which the game is clearly aimed. The weakest levels–and the most numerous–are those that follow the fundamental “move stuff, kill stuff, win” template. A few, however, hint at untapped potential. A Lion King scene in which you flee an oncoming wall of flames is structured like an old-fashioned left-to-right platformer, and it has a sense of urgency that makes it a single of the game’s better moments. The Monsters, Inc. world has you catching rides on moving doors and trotting about on ceilings, both of which lead to some amusing hijinks. Other attempts at gameplay diversity, such as on-rails shooting sections and flipping switches to guide a ball down a twisty ramp, are tedious because they final longer than they should. Adding a friend to the mix can enliven things, if it’s just one. Having four players, on the other hand, turns any shallow entertainment you might have been experiencing into an anarchic mess.
To the developer’s credit, actively playing with others introduces mechanics specific to cooperative play, such as power-ups that turn you in to a ground-slamming basketball. Puzzles, too, are tweaked to require the input of further players. For example, on your own, activating a key may give you a limited amount of time to jump throughout a series of rafts. creating a friend, a single player must remain on the key so that one more can carry out the leaps. But creating a total party, there’s so much visual feedback that you can’t inform what’s heading on. Enemies cavort everywhere, gold flies about, lasers cross the ground, sparks fly, bombs explode, and objectives and tooltips pop up–it’s all way too much. Some power-ups are intended to cause grief to your teammates, which could be a bit of evil fun. But all too often, the grief is inadvertent, as players wave their weapons about, hitting each other in all the madness as opposed to the enemies they’re trying to banish. Minigame challenges also occasionally suffer anticipated to overstimulation, though more often, they’re brought down by repetition. They are mostly variations on the similar few themes: beat stuff up, collect stuff, or avoid slipping stuff. The lack of creativity contributes to monotony, making these optional challenges something to avoid as opposed to seek out. Disney Universe is bound to elicit comparisons to the Kingdom Hearts games–not because they play similarly, but because they draw from Disney source material. Additionally, the enemies bear more than a passing resemblance to the foes in Kingdom Hearts, known as the heartless.
Unfortunately, such an clear nod to one more series emphasizes Disney Universe’s halfhearted use of beloved licenses. The visuals are fine if undistinguished and are centered on the game’s concept: you inhabit a computerized version of familiar universes, corrupted by those little villains that pop up on your travels. Some backdrops possess a pleasant saturated glow, and a few levels–the Alice in Wonderland ones in particular–nicely represent their worlds. But the distinctive looks of the Disney films don’t always translate well to Disney Universe’s art, which is neither very “Disney,” nor very fashionable on its personal terms. (As opposed to, say, the Lego games’ immediately recognizable flair, or Little Big Planet’s homemade arts-and-crafts look.) Authentic performances of iconic tunes from those films would have helped, but the computerized versions don’t have the charisma of the originals. The idea behind the presentation isn’t bad; it’s that the result is an odd middle soil between “Disney” and “generic animated TV show.” Disney Universe’s greatest troubles really aren’t in the presentation, but in the mundane gameplay that has you performing the similar fundamental projects in differently skinned levels. No a single element is satisfying in itself, nor do the pieces come together to make for an interesting whole. Instead, the game is a collection of fundamental mechanics creating a single hook: the license. And because that hook isn’t executed all that well, the rest is left to flounder. Disney Universe occasionally rises above the bare necessities. But if you actually were hoping for a lighthearted adventure, you should keep wishing upon that star.